It was with a heavy heart that I reported to you this month about the demise of Working Designs. To most gamers, it was an insignificant story. To others, it was catastrophic news. Why the discrepancy? Because, even though Working Designs brought many pioneering video games to North America and set new standards in game translation and presentation, they did so for a limited audience. This left the company with few devoted fans to acknowledge their achievements, or mourn their death. But nonetheless, it was a company that influenced the gaming world in many subtle ways.
To clear up any misunderstandings you might have about WD, let me start by explaining what they did and did not do. First, WD did not make games. They localized them, meaning they took completed games from Japan and made them playable in the U.S. Mostly, this composed of translating text, but often included many other aspects of game production, such as voice acting and animation. WD intentionally did not choose to localize Japan
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